


Wars and Winters

by SilverShortyyy



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Battle of Winterfell, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 01:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18713944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverShortyyy/pseuds/SilverShortyyy
Summary: Post-Battle of WinterfellThe dawn has come and gone once again and the Long Night has not come to stay. They have celebrations that night, but it’s really more of an excuse to drink away their grief and exhaustion (and fear for the future).Sansa drinks a goblet too many, her wine consumption and wandering thoughts completely out of her control. When she wakes up the next day, she wakes by the the hearth, in Tyrion’s arms.





	Wars and Winters

Sansa doesn’t remember getting blackout drunk last night, but obviously, no one would either.

She doesn’t remember either how she ended up in Tyrion’s arms (and him in hers) on the floor of the Great Hall, by the hearth.

The floor is cold, but Sansa doesn’t feel it too much.

Tyrion’s hair looks a lot less Lannister from here, with the light of the flames reflecting at the back of his head. Sansa thinks his hair looks more like hers at the moment, and that they might even pass up as a couple who eventually looked like each other, by the end of this.

Or at least, in this moment.

Sansa remembers drinking a goblet of wine, mourning on her lips. She celebrated, of course, their triumph over the Night King, and celebrated Arya for having been the cause of it. She remembers celebrating fantasies of the independence of the North, peace, time to mourn for the dead, time to get herself back together.

Another fantasy, another goblet.

She doesn’t think she’d ever properly mourned her parents, or Robb.

Or the Sansa she left behind when Ramsay took her from herself. Or the Sansa that Littlefinger pried from her fingers when he tore her away from Tyrion.

She is stronger now, but that Sansa had been so hopeful, so young.

So full of promise, of the future.

Another fantasy, another goblet.

What’s the future now?

Sansa brings her hand from Tyrion’s waist to his head. His hair is a mess, always, curls upon curls in discord especially in the northern weather. He really _was_ born in the south, she thinks, because it seems that only Northerners could keep their hair in order in times of war and winter.

She wonders if her own hair was able to keep order through the night.

The rest of the night is hazy from that single goblet of wine. Sansa thinks she’d had more that just one goblet by the end of what she could remember. She remembers Arya drinking a lot, Arya finally smiling, and Sansa remembers smiling when she sees Arya smiling, because how often is it that Arya smiles these days, how often? Not even in those rare moments with that boy Gendry did Sansa see Arya smiling, and only on occasion with the Hound (but they call him Sandor now; Clegane).

Sansa thinks there was a little bit more, maybe she had bumped into Daeneyrs or Varys, whichever, and somehow, she’d found herself outside, then on the way to her bedchambers, then back to the Great Hall.

How drunk must one be to have done all that in one night and not remember?

But Sansa remembers finding Tyrion, his sweet eyes, sad eyes, wars and winters of his years showing in tired circles beneath his eyes. He had smiled at her, tried to, but the wine and exhaustion pushed him not to put on a mask with her, not with her.

She doesn’t remember what they talked about, if they did, but she remembers enjoying his company, wishing it could stay like that forever.

Things won’t get any better, and even if they do, Sansa can’t believe that at the moment. So she settles for enough, just enough, not a fantasy but not a nightmare.

Tyrion. Just Tyrion. Kind, kind, Tyrion.

Maybe she got so drunk she couldn’t stand by herself anymore, and he had helped her sit as he sat down too. Maybe somehow they both ended up slipping off their seats and onto the floor, in front of the hearth where it was warmest.

Sansa wonders how the flame still lives when most of them seemed to have been drunk then asleep for hours now.

Tyrion’s scar is shrouded in shadow, and if only it would not wake him, she finds herself drawn to trace it with her finger.

She wonders if Tyrion has mourned his dead yet, properly, or has this all been as rough on him, as much of a journey of ‘keep going, keep going, mourn when it’s all over’ even when they both knew they might be dead by the time it’s all over?

She cards through his hair, and stares into the strands of it like the Red Priestess would in the flames.

His hand on her waist tightens.

“Sansa,” he grunts, still half-asleep, alcohol lacing his thoughts. Lacing his exhaustion. Sansa watches him open his eyes, slowly, like the gradual rise of the dawn. “Have you been awake long?”

Sansa shakes her head, just the slightest. “No.” A soft voice, like a little bird, like a meek cat. “No, I haven’t.” But she isn’t that little girl anymore, no.

She wonders if its her pain she sees in his tired eyes.

He tries for a smile. “You had quite a lot to drink last night.”

“‘Quite a lot’ is probably an understatement.”

He chuckles, quiet and deep, husky with sleep.

“Indeed.”

He closes his eyes again, and she sighs.

After everything, Sansa wonders if the sun would ever rise again as bright as it did the day King Robert came to Winterfell.

If the sun might ever rise again as bright as it did when her family could still sit around her, laughing, disagreeing, living in whatever peace they had from before everything.

Tyrion opens his eyes, and in them, is a sad smile.

He lifts his hand to hers in his hair, and pulls at it. She lets him, and lets him put his lips onto her palm as he did in the crypts, only without her gloves now.

They will never be okay again. She will never be okay again. The dawn will never rise like it used to again.

But one day, perhaps the dawn will rise gain. Brighter, better, cooled by winter but heated up by spring.

Sansa wonders if she’ll ever be happy again.

Tyrion answers her with his eyes that he has yet to be happy himself, but happiness is not hitting an arrow at a bullseye from a meter away, especially after all they’ve been through.

Sansa closes her eyes, and hopes the world could be kind to her even for a while, even if she knows it won’t ever be again.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the song _Another One of Those Days_ by Cavetown


End file.
